Union fights council plan to cut 1,200 jobs

Southampton city council has become the first big local authority to ask its workers to take a pay cut or lose their jobs, triggering a row with unions.

The Unite union, which has been staging a strike against the plans over the past six weeks, claimed at the weekend it had acquired a report from the council's management team detailing plans to cull over 25% of its 4,300 staff.

Its leadership budget showed that the council plans to set aside £15 million for the 2012/14 period to make around a quarter of the total council workers redundant.